Weather The Storm
by Serpent Tailed Angel
Summary: Erza was more or less content waiting for Jellal to work things out on his own. But when a spell gone awry leaves him pregnant with her child, the two have to pick up the pace and figure out where the stand with one another before they're ready to. Mpreg.
1. Chapter 1

**STA**: This story is meant as a companion to _Cue The Storm._ By no means do you need to have read CTS to follow this. If anything from CTS does come up, it will be as a background detail with no more explanation needed to understand than what's given. That being said, there is a line in CTS suggesting that Ultear is still with Crime Sorciere after the events of the Grand Magic Games, what with that fic being written before the arc ended and all. Since this story is set in the same fic-verse, I'm going to ignore that she's supposed to be an old woman who left everyone behind for the sake of fanfic continuity. Which is good, because now I have an excuse to not get rid of the opening I came up with for this thing over a year ago.

-x-

People generally think you're a lucky guy if you have a girl hanging off of each arm. What they don't realize is that this is highly situational. For example: If these girls are hanging off each arm to keep you from running from a third girl, a third girl who you have been lying to, then odds are you're out of luck.

Not that luck was something Jellal ever had much of.

That thought made Erza laugh nervously, even while her brain worked frantically to figure out what was so important that Ultear and Meredy would hold him in place. He didn't want to be there, clearly, so it had to be something he didn't want her to know. Something with the tower? No… no he was too guilt ridden to hide anything regarding that. What did he hide from her? He'd lied about the fiancée. Were they making him come clean? What if he _was_ engaged after all? The idea had her so worked up that she looked more anxious than Jellal did.

Seeing that he wasn't the only one dreading what he was going to say, and hoping that whatever Erza was imagining was worse than what he had to tell her, was what it took to loosen Jellal's tongue. Taking a deep breath and deciding to make the most of his moment of courage, he got right to the issue at hand.

"I'm pregnant."

While Erza was too stupefied to react, and while the girls were relaxing their grip now that he'd come clean, Jellal seized the opportunity to activate Meteor and bolt out of the clearing.

"The fiancée was more believable," Erza said once she'd found her voice. "And the fiancée wasn't all that believable."

"It really wasn't," Meredy agreed. "But he is pregnant."

Erza had no good response for that one. She smiled, blankly, at Meredy and Ultear and waited to see when they would drop the act. Unfortunately, the two kept straight faces, serious faces even, and continued to keep with their story.

"As the father, we thought you ought to know," Ultear told her.

"The father," Erza repeated, not sure if she should laugh or shake her head.

"Is that not the right term? You aren't the one carrying the child, but by all means it should be yours, so father seems more appropriate." Ultear glanced in the direction Jellal had fled, considering it. "We've been calling him 'mother' since we found out, but he might not mind if we switched terms."

Pregnant or not, Erza suspected Jellal wouldn't mind if his companions stopped calling him mother.

They seemed to be serious about it. Erza gave in and humored them. "How would you figure I'm the… the mother? With his _fiancée _Jellal and I haven't exactly… you know…" Her cheeks felt warm. Was she blushing? "I mean… we haven't… _made_ a child."

"Magic." Meredy told her, politely ignoring Erza's embarrassment. "You might remember that there was a spell that misfired a couple weeks back during the Grand Magic Games. It left the people it hit dazed. They weren't sure whether or not to halt the event."

Erza did remember that. Jellal still having been disguised as one of their guild members at the time, there had been a bit of panicking on their part when it became apparent that the spell had left him a bit on the disoriented side. She had been forced to flee a match temporarily to go to his side and keep watch over him until he'd fully regained his senses.

She also remembered that when they said their goodbyes after the tournament, it had been mentioned that he hadn't felt quite right since being struck by that spell.

Her cheeks felt cold then, and Erza was certain color was draining from her face as it sank in that they might be telling the truth.

"So that spell caused Jellal to… to…"

"To become pregnant," Ultear finished for her, producing a crystal ball from beneath her cloak as she spoke. "With another spell, we were able to verify that you're the father. Not that we expect you to feel any obligation. With our guild's need to stay on the move, we can't stay near Magnolia too long, so if you wanted to be involved with this whole affair, it won't be easy. Even keeping you updated on where we're going would be a risk. Although if you want, we could establish a place where we can leave money in exchange for supplies that it's difficult for us to get on our own. Normal food we can manage, but baby food…"

Well, if it was her baby, she wanted to make sure it was fed. "I… I can do that."

Ultear nodded. "We'll arrange something, then. In the meantime, let me find Jellal for you. Whether he wants to or not, this is something the two of you really should talk out."

-o-

It must have been convenient to be able to scry people with a crystal ball. Ultear had not only located Jellal, but also found the shortest path to him. This was still a two mile walk for Erza, but using Meteor, she didn't doubt that it had seemed like a short distance to her target.

Jellal had disappeared into the woods not too far from Magnolia, and found himself a nice pile of rocks to sit on and sulk. Erza lingered in the trees, watching him and considering whether or not it was a good idea to approach. She had come all this way, and seeing him look down, her immediate instinct was to go up to him and find out what was wrong. But she knew what was wrong. He was pregnant, apparently, and he'd clearly been mortified with having to tell her so. For her to come after him might not have been what he wanted.

But if it was her baby he was having, then Ultear was right. They needed to talk. And that was fine with her. When he'd left after the tournament ended, she hadn't been sure when she'd be able to see him again. To have him come back again so soon wasn't something she was opposed to. Maybe, if he wasn't too embarrassed to be seen with an eventual baby bump, this would mean more chances to talk with him regularly. At least for the next nine months.

So she stepped forward, making no effort to quiet her footsteps. Jellal looked up at the crunch of pebbles beneath her feet, and blushed when he caught sight of her.

"Ah… You… Uh…"

"Ultear helped me find you," she told him. "You aren't going to run away again, are you? It would be a bit of a hike back to ask her to locate you again."

Picking up on the implication that she would pursue him until she had what she wanted, Jellal's shoulders sagged. "I'm fine with staying put," he lied.

"That's good."

Erza took a seat on a rock beside his, looking out with him into the woods.

"You're really pregnant?"

He looked down at his lap. "So it would seem."

"What… What is that like?" Erza asked. "I've never been… That is, I've never had a boyfriend, so there haven't been many opportunities to become pregnant myself. It's been about a month, hasn't it. Do you still get nauseas?"

Jellal's chuckle was forced. "All the time."

She glanced at him. His gaze was still down. If he wasn't about to flee, now might be a good time to lay all their cards on the table. It wasn't exactly that she wanted to push him before he was ready on his own… but if they were going to be parents then there were a few details that needed clearing up.

"How is your fiancée taking it? That you're pregnant with another woman's child?"

Jellal flinched and looked up at Erza, eyes wide. "Ah. W-well she... I… W-when I told her… Oh forget it." He sighed. "She's couldn't have possibly taken it badly. You need to exist before you can be upset by something."

Erza waited to see if Jellal might see anything else, but he didn't. And there was no reason to badger him for having lied. If he ever felt like coming clean about why he'd lied then he could do that when he was ready. She already knew why anyway, or was pretty sure she did. What was most important then was that they didn't have to pussyfoot around the pretend fiancée anymore.

"I…" He took a deep breath. "I didn't meant to hurt you, if my making her up…"

"You didn't."

Okay, maybe it had hurt a _little_. But now wasn't the best time to mention that.

"It was just that… You could really do better than me, you know."

She doubted that. Oh, sure, she could find someone who wasn't on the run from the law and hadn't previously attempted to kill her, maybe. But if Jellal was who she wanted, then how could she do better than Jellal?

Again, not the best time for that. His hands were trembling, so rather than start an argument that would inevitably lead to him going into why he hated himself for what he'd done again, Erza reached out and put a hand on his.

"You're doing fine, Jellal."

He nodded, but his eyes were downcast again.

She rose from her rock, twirling to face him, and put a hand under his chin to lift it up. He wouldn't meet her gaze.

"It doesn't matter right now. Whatever happened in the past. Don't fixate on it."

"Right." But even though he agreed, his eyes wouldn't lock with hers.

A kiss right then and there might have gotten his attention, and curse it, it still wasn't the right time. Instead Erza cupped her other hand on his cheek, which made Jellal blush and turn away, now looking more flustered than depressed.

"I-I'm fine," he told her.

"Alright." She sat back down. "But since you're pregnant, we need to work things out. Ultear and Meredy seem to have plans for the three of you taking care of the baby, but if I'm the… um…"

"Father," he supplied.

"Mother. If I'm the mother, then I want to be able to see them growing up. I know you can't stay in one place forever, but if we could arrange some way that I could see you and our child when possible…" She almost forgot to add 'and our child' to that idea. Jellal, Meredy, and Ultear all seemed convinced that there was a child on the way, but the notion was still awfully abstract for her.

"Yeah. We'll… We can do that. We should be able to, at least. Our route seems to be a bit erratic, but we could probably come up with a few places we always hit on the same date." He looked at her then, managing something akin to a smile. "It would take a few years for anyone pursuing us to notice a pattern. And as the _father_, you should be able to see your child."

"The mother. I'm a woman."

"And I'm the one who's pregnant," he said with an overacted sigh. Was he _amused_ with her insisting on the correct terminology.

Erza forced down her irritation at that and focused on keeping the conversation productive. "I suppose. But that baby is calling me 'Mommy' when it learns how to talk." She paused. "Do you know the gender yet?"

"No. Meredy said it will be a few more weeks before she can verify that. She was the one who figured out that there was a baby in the first place."

He moved to rub his stomach, but thought better of it, and put his arm down. Still, the action caught Erza's attention, and she held a hand to the hem of his shirt. "May I?"

"It doesn't look any different yet."

That wasn't a major concern. "I'd still like to check. Just in case."

He blushed and looked away, which she took as permission, and lifted his shirt.

He'd told the truth. There wasn't a baby bump yet. Though his abs looked a bit on the soft side… But maybe that was just her imagination.

Letting his shirt fall back down, she asked, "How long ago did you figure it out?"

"Meredy's been insisting since a week after the tournament," Jellal confessed. "It took her a while to be able to convince me and Ultear. Having morning sickness set in didn't hurt her case, either."

He looked fine at the moment, but… "Ultear asked if I could help with getting baby supplies. I can get medicine for your stomach too, if you need it."

"I'll manage. But thank you." He smiled for her then. The first actual smile he'd managed.

She smiled back. "Alright. But if I find out you're getting really sick, then I'll have to insist on it. In the meantime, maybe I can help with finding whatever foods you might be craving? As the mother, I do want to do something for you."

He chuckled. "I haven't had too many cravings, but if it really matters that much to you, then I suppose you're welcome to help with groceries. We've set up camp nearby for a few days. The plan is to keep moving, but stay _near_ Magnolia for as long as we can manage. I'll be sure to keep you updated on where you can find us."

It probably still wasn't an appropriate time for it, but Erza felt like she'd earned something for resisting the urge to kiss him, and she leaned forward and wrapped Jellal in a warm hug. To her relief, he relaxed into her arms, and after a moment even but his around her.

"I'll be sure to visit."

-x-

**STA**: The last time I wrote a Jerza mpreg, Jellal was presumed to have died in the Tower of Heaven. I'm not kidding there. If you check out the author's notes, there's one where I'm freaking out because the chapter where you see Mystogan's face had just came out. The main thing I remember about writing that story was being frustrated with how long it took to have Jellal become and discover he was pregnant. In case you didn't notice, I had no patience for such buildup this time around.

But now that he's been around more, and while not being brainwashed to boot, I feel safe in saying that Jellal strikes me more as a mother type than Erza. She's just too stubborn and awkward about things. I feel like she'd wear the pants in the relationship, and Jellal would be the one who knows how to be reasonable about raising kids. If he stayed a fugitive, she would even be the one to go out and work and support the family while he laid low and watched over their children.


	2. Chapter 2

It only took a day for Erza to visit the first time after learning about his condition, but she hadn't come nearly as fast the time after that, for which Jellal was both relieved and disappointed. On the one hand, he did want to see her. On the other, he didn't particularly want to be seen. Especially by her. And she must have picked up on that, because over the next three weeks she'd only come twice more.

Two of those times, Jellal had made a point of going out to scout for and Rune Knights who might have caught wind of their location. Ultear and Meredy had let him slip away as they saw her approaching their camp, so he'd assumed they were alright with this. It was hardly their business anyway, whether he and Erza were intimately close or not. They'd already agreed on a way for her to see the baby, and how she would help them get supplies, and it wasn't like the nature of his and her relationship was going to change either of those plans much. Beyond that, it had no impact on his companions.

This had been a rather foolish assumption, he realized, when the three of them all went out together. Distracted with thoughts of what he would need to do in order to properly care for a newborn while on the run, Jellal paid precious little attention to where they were, until Ultear and Meredy both split off from him, pressing a note into his hand.

The paper roused him from his thoughts, and he could see he'd been left at Magnolia's outskirts. It was early enough at least that not too many people were out, but he'd be best off not lingering too long. If he were spotted, they would have to move further from town. Much further.

But if there was anything important he had to do there, he needed to do it first. So he unfolded the note and read it.

_Jellal, we're moving camp across town. Will be back for you after dark. See you tonight._

_-Ultear_

He stared at it, unsure how to react, until someone tapped his shoulder.

As a wanted fugitive hanging around the outskirts of a town he didn't want people to know he was near, Jellal jumped and whirled around, and was relieved to see it was only Erza.

"I had a letter," she told him, showing a sheet of paper. "Meredy said I was supposed to pick you up."

So that's what they'd been doing, leading him to town. They were going to _pay_ for this. Erza, however, had done nothing to earn his fury. So Jellal forced himself to smile for her.

"We should go," she said, looking over her shoulder. "If we wait much longer, you're more likely to be spotted."

What did Erza's letter say? Jellal wasn't sure how to get her to tell him without giving away that they'd been set up, which meant he would have to wait for Erza to carry out everything it instructed of her instead. He pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head and hoped that nothing she'd been told to do would in any way take advantage of the fact that there was no longer a fake fiancée between them.

Walking through town with her felt surreal. He'd seen Erza a few times now since he was broken out of prison, but it was always business. Mostly. Requesting her help with the Grand Magic Games, trying not to be killed by dragonspawn, arranging how she would be able to visit their child. Even if they walked quickly to minimize the stretch of time in which he might be seen and reported by some good samaritan, to walk through a town with her on a pleasant morning felt nice. It was almost like they were a normal couple.

What he'd gathered by talking to Erza's comrades was that she and most of the girls in the guild stayed in a dorm outside of town, so he was taken by surprise when she suddenly took his arm and turned him towards the door of a small townhouse. In the interest of not lingering outside, he waited until she'd unlocked the door and pulled him inside before asking, "When did you move in here?"

Luckily for him, the fact that he knew she'd lived somewhere else until recently slipped past Erza's notice. "Just in the past few weeks. I had some savings, and the location was nice. I was lucky to find it right away. There was even a second place down the street where I could store my spare armor. Meredy said you only need a place to hide for the day, but there's a guest room. It isn't furnished yet, but I can pull out a sleeping bag. I_ think_ I know where one is. There's a lot of boxes I haven't had the time to go through yet."

There was armor lined up along every wall Jellal could see, and likely more stored away with Erza's magic. He couldn't imagine how many suits she must have owned, if she needed a second house just to hold them all.

Would that be tactless to ask? He cleared his throat and addressed the boxes pushed to the middle of her living room instead. "You've been busy, I take it?"

Erza locked the front door, then gestured for Jellal to follow her into the kitchen. "A little. Our guild is getting jobs again, so we've been taking advantage of the ability to work more. Pull up a stool. I can make you breakfast."

"I can…" Jellal paused. He was good with cooking over a campfire, but it had been a long time since he'd needed to handle a stove. How well exactly _could_ he cook?

Taking his silence to mean he would eat her cooking, Erza pulled a pan from her cabinet and started searching for eggs to fry. "Alright. How about an omelet then? I'm pretty sure I have the ingredients for that."

She wasn't sure she had eggs and oil? "How much time have you spent _not_ working?"

"Not much," Erza admitted. "But work is fun. The other day we got to hunt selkie. And also I was thinking… Um…" She paused in the middle of pulling out a carton of eggs and glanced Jellal's way.

He waited while her cheeks turned pink for her to say something.

"Well, it doesn't matter," she muttered, turning back to the food.

But as she cooked, she kept pausing for a moment to glance over at him, which might have made Jellal less uncomfortable if she could actually make eye contact when she did so. At the fourth glance, he managed to figure out where exactly her gaze was going, which only made him less comfortable, and he put an arm self-consciously around his stomach before asking, "Was there something you were wondering about the baby?"

Saying 'the baby' to describe something inside of him still felt wrong.

Erza dropped her spatula and turned to look at him, still blushing. "I was thinking… with all the traveling you must do… that is… I wouldn't mind having times arranged to visit, but it might be better if the child stayed in Magnolia with me."

Thus the new living space, Jellal realized. A house with suits of armor lining the halls was hardly childproof, but staying in one place with a reliable four walls and a roof—not to mention someone who could legally work—would be better for a child. He would never have dared ask Erza to take their baby, but if she was offering, he saw no good reason to refuse.

"That might be a good idea."

"Right." She looked like there was something else she wanted to ask, but instead of saying it, turned back to make sure the eggs didn't burn.

That was alright. He was pretty sure she'd already given away what is was. "We can stick with the meet-up schedule we arranged, still," Jellal told her. "If you're the one who raises the child, then I'll be the one who needs to come when possible to see how they're doing. As the mother…" Erza shot him a glare. "As the _father_, I don't want to be completely absent from our son or daughter's life."

His son or daughter was still an abstract concept to him that he would be happy not to deal with. Especially since, hungry as he was, the smell of those eggs fried in coconut oil made him feel a little queasy. But at least Erza was smiling now.

The omelet was finished and placed in front of him, and he forced his own smile while slowly eating it. It wasn't bad, probably. It wasn't burnt, at least. But most things hadn't tasted good to him since morning sickness set in. Erza, distracted with making her own breakfast, didn't notice the two or three times Jellal almost failed to keep the food she'd prepared for him down. She might have noticed when, after he finished eating, he had to sit for a minute and take a few deep breaths, but she didn't comment.

-o-

Not commenting, it turned out, was something they were both interested in doing a lot of. Jellal didn't comment on how many suits of armor Erza had. She didn't comment on how unsure he seemed of what to do while in an actual house. He didn't comment on the fact that she'd rushed to try and accommodate for a child before she even knew for sure that she would be raising on. She didn't comment on how easily distracted he became by reminders that he was pregnant. He didn't comment on the care she'd put into looking nice that day. She didn't comment on how she wished he'd come more often.

It wasn't until noon that they found a casual topic that one or the other of them wasn't trying to dodge.

"The spare room you mentioned I could stay in," Jellal said, searching for a subject that would be appropriate for their situation, "Is it going to be the baby's?"

Erza's eyes lit up at the question. "I thought it would make a good nursery. If you were willing to let me have the child."

This time his self-consciousness couldn't overpower the reminder that he was carrying a child, and Jellal rubbed his stomach. "May I see it?"

"Well, it isn't furnished yet…" Erza paused to see if Jellal might express disinterest in light of this admission. He didn't. "It's upstairs. I'll give you a tour of the whole place."

It wasn't much of a tour. He's seen her living room and kitchen, and a small dining room that led out to an equally small backyard had been visible from the kitchen counter. Upstairs she skipped over her own bedroom, which left only a bathroom and a largely empty second bedroom to be shown around.

"I meant to move out of my old dorm eventually," Erza said, "But before I knew for sure whether or not I would be the main on raising the child, I didn't think I should look at cribs. Starting tomorrow I'll keep an eye out for something I like. And paint! You have to let me know as soon as Meredy finds out the gender so I know what color to pain the room. I don't know if the walls should be my…" She caught herself, then realized what she'd been about to say wasn't too awkward. "I don't know if that walls should be my hair color or yours. Give or take a few shades."

He cast her an amused look. "More than a few." There was quite a difference between a baby's shade of pink and that brilliant scarlet of hers.

"When will she be able to tell the gender?"

"Reliably? Not for a bit longer. She already has her suspicions, but she refuses to tell me until she's sure."

"You have to let me know when she finds out. Send a letter first thing. I don't want to know if it's he or she as soon as I can." It felt odd to say that, and Erza blushed. "Does this feel strange to you? Talking about a baby? In less than a year there's going to be another person."

"Sometimes. It doesn't help that neither of us did much to cause that."

The thought made them both blush.

"W-well!" Erza turned to the bedroom door. "It's almost lunch. I… I should get something for us to eat! I'll make something special to. Just to… um… celebrate?"

"Y-yeah. Sure. That sounds nice."

-o-

It took a bit of coaxing from Erza to convince Jellal that it was safe to go out in her backyard while she made her 'something special'. She knew which of her neighbors would be busy with work and when they could be relatively certain that no one would look of a bedroom window and see Jellal in her yard. He still pulled his hood up, out of habit, but if Erza thought it was safe for him to sit out in her backyard for a bit, then he felt relatively safe out there. And after years of traveling outdoors, it felt weird to have spent so much time in someone's house.

Come to think of it, wasn't that a little sad? To not be comfortable spending a single morning in someone's house? Granted, that it was _Erza's_ house specifically might have had something to do with it but… it really had been a long time since his life in any way resembled something stable. Much less normal.

He was staring blankly at her fence, wondering just how disappointed his childhood self might be with him—any aspect of him—when Erza slid open the backdoor and gestured for him to come back inside.

"You didn't need to put the hood up," she said for the fifth time that afternoon.

"I would rather not have you get arrested for hiding a fugitive," Jellal replied, but his attention was no longer entirely on her. Having been made to wait while she cooked, he'd missed having lunch at a reasonable time. Like any normal, non-pregnant person who missed a meal, this meant that he was hungry, and that the sandwiches set out on her kitchen counter, for all their simplicity, looked delicious.

However, as a pregnant person, Jellal had learned that any comments about being hungry invited 'eating for two' jokes. So he held his tongue and tried not to stare at the food too obviously.

Erza still noticed him looking, and smiled. "Eat up. I cobbled together what variety I could. I didn't know if you were craving anything or not, but if you are I probably don't have it stocked right now anyway."

He'd seen her digging through her near empty fridge like she thought there was some back wall she might be able to pry off that would reveal a trove of foodstuffs, and had to agree that nothing would have been accomplished by mentioning he wanted anything specific.

That was fine. He could see cheese and lettuce and some sort of cold cut in her sandwiches, and with his morning sickness having gone away after morning, the food was making his mouth water.

They sat and ate, Erza recounting her selkie hunt for Jellal to keep conversation going. He nodded along, asking trivial questions when it seemed appropriate to reaffirm that he was paying attention. The idea did cross his mind to mention his own escapades, but he held back. Erza learning that he was still going out and helping hunt down dark guilds, even if he stayed in the rear and used projectile spells, could wait until he knew that Erza wouldn't be upset with the idea of someone pregnant with her child running off to fight the morally bankrupt.

Things were awkward enough between them. If she gave some order for him to play it safe, how awkward would it become if she caught him defying her?

She didn't comment on him eating more than her. Again for the sake of not being told he was eating for two, Jellal hoped that meant she had some mundane explanation. Like having eaten as she cooked. Or maybe she was trying not to look like a glutton.

That thought struck him later than he'd have liked, and he found himself regretting that he hadn't showed a bit of restraint himself when eating in front of her. Suddenly, the idea of blaming his behavior on the need to eat for two was alarmingly tempting. But of course, since she didn't comment on how much he ate, there was no opportunity to defend himself.

No. Instead of giving Jellal a chance to excuse his behavior. She instead opened up a cabinet and pulled out a cake.

Jellal had just a moment to appreciate the realization that Erza was also missing enough kitchenware to use her cabinets for hiding food before the smell hit him. The scent of strawberries and premade backing mix and much too much sugar filled the room. Jellal's stomach lurched, which gave him just enough warning to bolt outside before vomiting.

Erza looked, horrified, out her backdoor, then guiltily stuffed the cake back into its hiding place. After a moment she also went around opening windows to let the scent air out. Once that was taken care of and she couldn't think of another immediate task to busy herself with, she went out into the backyard to see if Jellal was done coughing up his lunch.

He wasn't, and after a moment's hesitation she put a hand on his shoulder. It was a moment longer before Jellal could summon the energy to give her a grateful smile.

"Sorry," she said.

"No," he managed. "It's not… I didn't know that would happen either."

"I wasn't even thinking about morning sickness," she admitted. "I can make something lighter for dinner. Is there anything you know won't bother you?"

The only things he could list off the top of his head that were almost certainly safe were all bland, but he told her them anyway. Then he chanced going back into the house and, at her insistence, settled back on her couch while she ran out to buy groceries.

He'd only meant to rest a moment. Just while she was out. For as rare as seeing Erza was, and for as much rarer as he thought it would be to be a guest in her house, Jellal didn't intend to sleep through any of the time he had to spend with her. But he shut his eyes while she was gone and only opened them when she tapped his shoulder and said, "Hey, dinner's ready."

Embarrassed, wiping a bit of drool from his cheek that must have appeared in his sleep, Jellal got up and followed her to the table.

Dinner was indeed bland. Boiled chicken, dumplings, and rice. But breakfast had hurt to eat and he hadn't kept his late lunch down, so he wasn't about to complain about the taste of food that he could actually stomach.

The meal was awkward and uncomfortable, a description that Jellal had come to decide described the whole day. Erza didn't even look at her food until she'd watched him take a few bites without getting sick. And after having eaten too much at lunch, Jellal was self-conscious enough of his intake to eat dinner slowly.

They were halfway through the meal before Erza spoke.

"Is it common? For foods to bother you, I mean?"

They'd been silent long enough that the question took Jellal by surprise. "I guess. I don't usually bother with breakfast anymore."

She nodded. "There's a boy living with Natsu right now who's in the same boat as you, but I don't see him get sick so often. Bisca said her morning sickness was never terrible either. I'd started to assume that people just exaggerated how bad morning sickness could be. And also that it was a thing that happened in the morning. Not mid-afternoon."

"It's mostly a morning thing," Jellal assured her. Although his focus was now on the fact that he was at least not the only pregnant man in the country. That other man didn't get sick so often? How envious.

"Oh. Right. Because you don't… I mean, you should still try to eat breakfast, Jellal. It's not good for you to starve yourself."

"I'm not starving." Overall. Just then it was taking a lot of self-control not to inhale his food.

Erza nodded. "Alright. Good. I'd hate for the baby to not get enough food to grow properly."

Satisfied with the information she'd managed to procure Erza returned her attention to her food, thus missing Jellal uncomfortably rubbing his stomach. The slight bump beneath was too small to be seen through his clothes, but when he'd noticed it earlier he'd been less than pleased. In an abstract sense, he wanted his offspring to grow as it should, but the child was still an abstract idea to him, and the beginning signs that his own body, something he most certainly did not want, was about to grow was something he could observe with little difficulty.

But he'd be a terrible mother to not want his child, abstract as it was, to grow up healthy, so Jellal didn't mention as much. It would probably make Erza ask to see his stomach, anyway.

The subject of his pregnancy, mercifully, didn't come up again. Erza did dishes after dinner and was prompting Jellal to share a story of one of his guild's exploits when someone knocked at the door.

She gestured for him to stand out of sight of the doorway, which proved to be a waste of effort, as it was Ultear who turned out to be waiting when she opened the door.

"We're done relocating camp," she said. "I bet Jellal would be more comfortable here, but if he doesn't want us to come back for him in the morning—"

"I wouldn't want to impose any longer than I already have," Jellal insisted, shooting Ultear a warning look. They had already duped him into spending the day at Erza's, and all that had come of that was that he felt less comfortable. If they made him stay the night he might end up too embarrassed to show his face to her again.

Erza glanced from Ultear to Jellal, who assumed a normal expression when she looked his way, and shrugged. "Alright. The spot from the letter? I'll come visit next time I can make it out." Casting a smile Jellal's way, she added, "We should do this again some time."

-o-

Ultear waited until they were just outside of town to speak, which Jellal was grateful for. It meant the woman didn't want to get Meredy involved and team up on him. "You didn't even kiss, did you?"

"No, but I did throw up in front of her."

"What a waste."

"I know." Jellal sighed. "She made a nice lunch."

"Not that. You had all day with her. You didn't talk about anything _important_ to the two of you?"

He glanced at her. With her hood up most of her face was obscured, but then the way she'd stressed the words he still knew what she meant.

"We discussed who would raise the child, and both agreed that it would be a better idea for her to be the primary parent," Jellal said before addressing Ultear's actual question. "Nothing is going to happen between us. I'm already saddling her with a baby on top of everything _else._ She can do better than me."

"Are you sure she wants to?"

"If she doesn't, that's all the more reason not to give in. I won't let her settle for less than she deserves. And I won't accept anything more than I deserve either."

Rolling her eyes, Ultear slung and arm over Jellal's shoulder and pulled him closer. "Look. You're pregnant. You get sick just often enough that, if we could, I'd have you checked out at a hospital. And you're not even to the part where you're uncomfortably large yet. If you really insist on being tortured, your body will take care of that for you in the coming months. So until then, maybe don't torture Erza quite so much and lighten up a bit on that front, okay?"


	3. Chapter 3

Erza had gone to visit Jellal two days later, and found Crime Sorciere's camp empty. That had been more than a little alarming, and she'd wandered the surrounding area in search of Jellal and his companions, worried that they might have been discovered and taken away. The next morning, panicked, she'd even set out for Era in order to verify that Jellal was still at large.

He was, but when she checked the camp again it was still empty. And her guild mates, seeing her distress, had sent her out on a job to take her mind off of Jellal's disappearance.

This meant she was gone when the memebers of Crime Sorciere returned from a dark guild hunt the very next day. And that Jellal spent the next couple weeks wondering if he'd done something to keep her from wanting to visit again.

By the time they were both were in the area again, Jellal's stomach was beginning to show from under his shirt. And with his legal status being what it was, replacing his admittedly fitted clothes with something that might hide the baby bump a little better wasn't a reasonable option. That didn't stop him from wishing he had something looser when he saw Erza approaching the camp. And even the way her eyes lit up when they met his didn't keep him from considering hiding so she wouldn't notice that he was getting bigger.

In fact, he was about to do just that when he happened to catch Ultear's eye, and her comment about him torturing Erza floated through his mind. So rather than bolt—which hadn't worked the last time he tried to run from Erza anyway—he rose and went to meet her.

As she got close he noticed she was carrying something. Something that smelled… not awful. Not in the conventional way. But it made his stomach churn. His expression must have betrayed that he suddenly felt ill, because her face fell suddenly. He would have assured her it was okay, but he had to quickly put a little physical distance between himself and her so that when he threw up, he wouldn't get her dirty.

Meredy was the one to come over and pat his back while Ultear ushered Erza away, showing her "their spot" to stash food so the smell wouldn't get to Jellal. He hadn't realized the girls were keeping anything that they knew upset his stomach.

By the time he felt he could safely stand, Ultear had led Erza over to their campfire, which several logs had been pulled up beside for them to sit on. Since he'd already worked up the nerve to walk up to her once, he could hardly back down now. Even if he was a little worried that whatever food she'd brought might have left it's scent on her.

He went over and sat beside her, and was pleased to discover that there was no lingering scent to make him sick again.

Erza, unfortunately, also made a pleasant discovery.

"Is that your stomach?"

She reached down to poke it without warning, but caught her hand inches away and retracted. Right after Jellal was sick would not be to best time for belly pokes.

Her moment of hesitation gave Jellal an opportunity to buckle his jacket and better conceal the bump before answering. "Actually, that was my shirt."

So rare was it to hear Jellal joke that it took Erza a moment to realize that's what he'd done. And having missed the right time to laugh without appearing slow on the uptake, the blushed and put her hand down.

"Sorry for making you sick."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Ultear told her. "You're the second person today."

"Actually, I'd appreciate it if all three of you could worry about it a little more," Jellal said.

"You make it sound like we're _trying_ to get you sick," Meredy said. Turning to Erza, she added, "Don't worry about it. Half the things that upset him change daily. More than once he's badgered us about wanting to eat something specific only to get sick from the taste of it. What did you bring, anyway?"

"Cake," Erza muttered. "W-well, maybe next time—"

"Wait." Ultear held a hand up. "What kind? You might have hit on one of the foods Jellal hasn't been able to tolerate at all."

"Also, can we have some?" Meredy asked, much to Jellal's irritation. How was she not trying to make him sick while asking to be served food that she'd just witnessed making him sick from smell alone?

"Strawberry. I only brought enough for two…" Erza glanced at Jellal, then quickly looked away.

Now that just made him feel bad! If she'd had him in mind when she picked it out, he wanted to be able to enjoy it with her. But on the other hand…

"Strawberries are something Jellal's had trouble with," Ultear said before Jellal had to give Erza the bad news himself. "We tried mixing them into a stew that didn't go over well with him, and we've had to avoid using them since. But if you feel like treating him to something, he likes chocolate."

"You _don't_ have to get me anything," Jellal insisted.

Erza glanced his way again, smiling, and shook her head. "Well, I'd feel bad if you didn't get _anything_. As the father…" She paused, horror flickering across her expression.

"Erza?"

"As… as the _mother_… as the one who isn't pregnant, I would like to do something to help make you more comfortable. You like chocolate?"

Jellal hesitated a moment before saying, "If that's your aim, I would honestly appreciate medicine for morning sickness more."

"Ginger." Ultear cut in. "We can make something homebrewed for his stomach with ginger. But if you want to bring him a slice of cake with that, it would be awfully ungrateful of him to complain."

She and Meredy, mercifully, then began arguing over whether Erza only needed to bring a slice for Jellal, or if she should bring enough for all of them to enjoy. Before they could stop any say anything else he might not appreciate, Jellal took Erza's hand and led her into the surrounding woods where they might have some privacy.

"We're getting close to where Meredy told me to hide the cake."

He led Erza into the woods in the opposite direction.

They round a small creek running through a depression in the ground to settle beside, sitting just beyond where the ground became muddy. Erza settled down instantly while Jellal fussed a bit with getting his clothes to stay straight, eventually giving up and unzipping the jacket so it could spread out behind him.

"Sorry for those two," Jellal said once he'd finished fighting with his clothes. Although there was no particular reason to apologize to Erza on behalf of his companions. She wasn't the one they'd been embarrassing.

"Don't worry. I didn't mind them too much. And it was good to know that you… that you can't eat strawberries." Her eyes were downcast when she said it, and her voice was soft. From the expression on her face, it looked less like she was discussing what foods Jellal could or couldn't handle and more like she was trying not to think too hard about the fact that her pet had just died.

Was it that big of a deal to her? "W-well, even if we have to part ways before the baby is born, We'll return later to pass it on to you. If there's something you want me to try, I should be able to have it then."

That made Erza smile, and she put a hand to her mouth to try and smother a chuckle. "Of course. I'll bake something to celebrate the baby finally being born." She paused. "The baby can't eat with us though, can they?"

"I'm fairly certain that newborns can't eat solid foods." Or most liquid foods. She planned on reading up on this if she was going to be the primary parent, right?

Erza glanced over at the creek, thinking quietly a moment before making the mistake of thinking aloud. "I'll need to ask Porlyusica if there's anything I need to take in order to be able to breast feed."

Jellal sputtered and turned away so she wouldn't see how horribly that thought made him blush. With the initial plan having been for him to keep the child, it had always been a given to him that they would feed the thing formula. The possibility of anything clinging to Erza's _breasts_ had never crossed his mind. And… hey… didn't women… _grow_ while they were feeding too? Erza was already plenty large in that regard.

He felt something on his back, and looked over his shoulder to see Erza leaning with her back against him.

"Erza?"

"Hold still," she ordered. "We should make this our spot."

"Do you even remember how we got here?"

"Nope." Erza tilted her head back so it rested on Jellal's neck. "We should keep track of how we get back. Leave a trail of crumbs so we can find our way here again. I should have brought that cake with me."

"I'm glad you didn't."

"Which story is it? With the trail of bread crumbs?"

Jellal thought about it a moment. He hadn't had much of a childhood. Less than Erza, but he was pretty sure it was… "Hansel and Gretel?"

"That sounds right. I should probably buy children's books, shouldn't I? Or… no. I won't need those until the baby starts talking. What helps keep a baby entertained? A mobile, maybe?" She stretched, pressing her head against his neck, and when she let her arms drop back down a hand landed on his. He wasn't entirely sure that was a coincidence and…

_Don't torture Erza quite so much_.

Coincidence or no, Jellal swallowed and did nothing to move his hand away.

"M-maybe, before anything like that, you might want to make sure you have the right crib."

"Obviously." Erza turned, keeping her hand on Jellal's, and looked up at him. "Do you think I'll make a good mother? Trying to read children's books to the baby too early and feeding them cake before they can handle solid foods."

He smiled for her. "It won't hurt the baby to have you reading to it before it knows what you're saying."

Not noticing that he'd skimmed over her feeding their baby solid foods, Erza smiled back and resumed leaning against him. "I'm sure we could figure it all out. We'd make good parents in the end."

We? Was it too late to pull his hand away?

Erza had noticed her slip of the tongue too, and her voice was softer when she spoke again. "It would be nice, you know? We could take turns looking after the baby while going on jobs. Or get Lucy to babysit and take a mission together. When they're older, our son or daughter could come along with us. If we could actually be together."

If he hadn't been such a terrible person before that he had to hide from the law now. If he hadn't created so much baggage between them that he couldn't accept someone like her being saddled with someone like him.

He needed to say something, but no words came to mind. He hadn't been wrong. Erza deserved better. She wanted a normal, stable family, and he couldn't give her that. Even if he wanted it too, even if he could let himself be happy with her, it was impossible for him to give her that.

Something fell on his cheek, and he looked up. It had been overcast earlier, and it looked like it was now about to rain. Lovely. He pulled his hand away from Erza's, and was about to stand and suggest they head back to camp when an idea came to him.

"You call the baby 'they' all the time, don't you?" Jellal asked. "I've been saying 'it.'"

"I noticed that."

"It doesn't feel real to me yet. That I'm having a baby. So I always forget to talk about it… ah… them like they're a person."

"You're pregnant, and the baby doesn't feel _real_ to you?" From her expression, Jellal couldn't tell if Erza was puzzled or amused. Not that the two were mutually exclusive. "How do you feel, if not like you're carrying a baby.

"Queasy and fat," he answered honestly, which was a silly thing to admit he felt. Even if there was now a bump that could be seen through his shirt, he had more or less retained his figure so far. "I suppose once the baby starts moving, I'll have a harder time with _not_ accepting this, but for now it still feels like, on some level, this might be a prank from Meredy that we fell for."

"How does that explain the morning sickness? And this?" She placed a hand on his stomach, palm curling over the slight bump.

"That… I don't _really_ think… I mean… I've accepted that this is real. But it doesn't always feel that way. The idea that I'm actually carrying a child… it still seems surreal to me."

Another drop hit his cheek, and one landed on his hand. He glanced over in the general direction of camp, wondering if they should get back and hide in his guild's tent before it could really start coming down.

Erza seemed not to notice. "Well, if you need something more tangent to wrap your mind around this, then maybe you should imagine the child now. Who do you think it will look more like? You, or me?"

"What?"

"Do you think the baby will look more like you, or me?" Erza repeated.

It started raining then. Not hard, but steady. If they didn't start heading back, they were going to end up with damp clothes for the rest of the day.

"I…" Jellal glanced once more towards camp, but Erza hadn't budged. "I don't know. If it's a girl, then like you, I would hope."

"You don't want to see any of yourself in your daughter? What if it's a boy?"

"The less the child looks like me, the less likely anyone is to realize that someone like _me_ is the moth… parent."

"_I'm_ the mother," Erza reminded him, even if she really wasn't. "I think they should have blue hair. You see blue hair more often than red. I bet that's a more dominant color."

"Could be." A little blue haired baby. That might be nice, were he able to be a significant part of its life. "But I think your eye color is a more likely one for them to get."

"Oh, but your eyes are so pretty."

"Yours are better."

Jellal was grinning now, and he hadn't noticed that the steady rain had quickly transformed into a downpoor. He didn't move Erza's hand off his stomach either, even when she shifted positions so only the tips of her fingers rested on the bump.

"I hope it's a boy," she told him. "A handsome little boy like you. And that he grows up to be just like…" she stumbled a moment. 'Just like you' was not, all things considered, what either of them would wish upon anyone. And if she specified Jellal's positive qualities, she would remind him of the negatives. "Just like the boy I fell in love with," she settled on.

It wasn't Ultear's words that made Jellal chuckle at that. Rather, he'd forgotten in the moment that he was supposed to deny himself her. "Well, if it's a girl, then let's hope she grows up as strong and beautiful as you."

-o-

By the time it occurred to them to seek shelter at Jellal's camp, they were drenched. But Ultear and Meredy obligingly pulled aside anything in the tent that needed to be kept dry and let the two crawl in. Meredy hardly even complained when Ultear grabbed an umbrella and pulled her out for 'scouting' so the two could be alone while the mood lasted.


	4. Chapter 4

Erza did bring chocolate cake the next time she came to visit the camp. She brought a week's worth of newspapers as well. "Since you guys probably have trouble keeping up on the news, and I thought the big story right now might interest you."

She wanted to feed Jellal bites of her cake, which was a bit more than Jellal felt he was ready for, and to get out of having to hold his mouth open for her, he leaned over Ultear's shoulder and read the paper with her.

_Dark Guild Siren Song Raids Bank_. The attack had been on the other side of the country. Looked like their guild would be going on a trip. Good. Being in a different part of the country, even if only for a few days, would keep the Council from noticing them lingering near Magnolia for longer. Even if they'd been out recently. Looking like they were on the move could only help.

When he glanced away from the paper and back to Erza she was looking dejected. It couldn't hurt to humor her just a little, could it? This wouldn't last, and she knew it. His guild had only risked staying in one place so long because of the pregnancy, and in all likelihood they would have to move out before the baby was born. Certainly right after, if they managed to avoid detection for that long. But for a few short months, what harm was there in entertaining a fantasy?

So he straightened back up and let her put a piece of cake in his mouth. Then, to avoid the awkwardness of sitting there with his mouth open while she made sure she had the angle of her fork just right again, he fed her a piece of his cake.

"If you want some alone time…" Ultear didn't bother with finishing the offer.

Erza shook her head. "We're good."

Pity. He would have liked a little time alone with her. But then maybe it was for the best that they didn't have another chance to get lost in the moment together. Look how much ground he was giving after last time.

"I wish I had a camera right now," Meredy said. "I've never seen Jellal act like such a dork. I'd like to capture the moment."

"I'm glad you don't. I've managed this long without a photo, and I'd like to make it the next six months without one." Jellal wrapped an arm self-consciously around his stomach. "The less evidence that this happened there is, the better."

"Your child will be fairy indisputable evidence," Ultear pointed out.

"No one is going to assume _I_ cared…" He caught himself about to say 'it'. "There's no way for anyone to know that I was the one who was pregnant with them."

"The guild might," Erza admitted. "I told them where I've been sneaking off too so often. And why. Was I supposed to hide it from them?"

Jellal needed a moment to recover from… not the shock. The shame. The shame upon discovering that the number of people who knew about his situation was so much larger than he'd thought it to be, and the shame of the situation that so many people knew about.

"I would have preferred you not."

Erza shrugged. "I wouldn't worry about how they're taking it. There were four… or was it five? There were five different men hit with the spell that caused this. And right now, Rogue's the one everyone in the guild is watching."

"Rogue?" Jellal wracked his brain trying to remember who that was. The shadow dragonslayer, wasn't it. "Isn't he from a rival guild?"

"Booted," Erza told him. "He's living with Natsu now. There's some… hubbub, you could say, between the three of them. Him and Natsu and Sting. I haven't been following it myself, though. Gossip doesn't interest me." Her own love life had taken priority over the mess Rogue had dragged Natsu into. "I think Sting left for some reason or another. He didn't think he was really the father, I think is what Rogue said. He came back the other day. Apparently he only _just_ found out that it was a spell that caused this."

Alongside Rogue, Jellal remembered Sting. The blond man with the scar who had to have been incredibly determined to let as much of the country as possible see how well defined his stomach was. (How fortunate, if he was so prideful, that it was his partner who was now having their figure destroyed instead of him.) Since he hadn't foreseen having any dealings with the two's guild, he hadn't taken too detailed a note of their faces. But now that he thought of them, he realized he'd seen Sting's elsewhere.

"I think I might have had a hand in that," Jellal confessed. Depending on the exact nature of this 'hubbub', it might not be something he wanted to admit to, but he was curious to hear about this other pregnant man.

Despite her claim that she wasn't interested in gossip, Jellal had Erza's attention. "How so?"

"We ran into Sting earlier this week." Jellal looked back at Ultear for confirmation. "Didn't we? The blond man with the shirt that showed his midriff."

"Jellal's been aware of the sorry state his own is in, so he notice's other people's a lot more now," Meredy teased, but she looked thoughtful. "Now that you mention it, there was someone like that. We bumped into him while taking down the Shadow Alp guild. We even talked with him for a bit afterward. I mean, we needed to make sure he knew not to mention having seen us. He wanted to know why Ultear and I were in the frontlines and Jellal in the back when he looks more like the sort to handle things up front than either of us do." Which was a horrible unfair judgment to make. Even if Jellal _was_ the only one of the three who preferred magic that had him in hand to hand combat. "The subject of pregnancies and keeping unborn children out of harm's way might have come up, and that may have required an explanation as to how it was possible.

Jellal had thought almost nothing of it, but watching Erza's expression change from her pleasant smile to a stunned look, then an angry scowl, he realized he'd done something wrong. Running over the conversation to try and find any mistakes, he made his best guess. "Sorry. I should have made a fuss about you telling others when I'm not trying as hard as I'd like to keep this a secret myself." It wasn't fair of him to be mad with her if he was blabbing about the pregnancy to everyone he met too. That he had fewer chances to tell people didn't change the fact that he wasn't doing a good job of hiding his condition.

"You're _fighting_?" Erza whispered, harsh and cold. "Jellal, you're _pregnant_. Why are you _fighting_? Why are you fighting _dark guilds_ that would _kill _you if you slip up?"

"To be fair," Jellal pointed out, "they would kill me even if I wasn't pregnant."

This, it turned out, was not the correct response.

"You. Are. Pregnant." Erza hissed. "Pregnant with _our_ child! You can't _endanger_ them like that!"

"Ah!" Ultear whirled around, looking out into the woods. "Scouting! Meredy, we forgot to do our morning scouting! Come on. We need to make sure there aren't any… um… Rune Knights."

Meredy had taken scouting duty the day before, so it was supposed to be her day off. And Jellal had already scouted that morning. But for as much as he wanted not to be abandoned with Erza just then, he didn't dare mention that. Hearing he was so reckless as to go _scouting_ might anger her further.

"For once in your life," Erza said, "just _once_, can you _stay out of trouble_?"

"It's… it's not like I try to end up in trouble," Jellal argued.

"Isn't that the point of your guild?"

Not exactly. But it was close to the point of the guild. Close enough that he didn't expect the furious woman now yanking on his collar so that his face was closer to hers to appreciate the different.

"It's bad enough that you have no regard for your _own_ life. But to risk our child's too? How _dare_ you run off like that!"

Later, Jellal would rationalize his reaction as being due to something in her tone, or the way she squeezed his arm with the hand not on his collar, nails digging into his skin as she stressed the word _dare_. Later still, when he'd calmed down, he would try to laugh the whole thing off and pretend he had over reacted. But just then he was not calm. And something in her tone as she dug her nails into his arm just got under his skin.

"How dare _you_," Jellal snapped back, swatting both of her arms away with an ease suggesting she'd expected no resistance. That only annoyed him further. She didn't get to always have her way with him.

"Me? I'm not the one who's so incapable of realizing the sort of responsibility you stuck us with to take a moment to realize I shouldn't do things that will get the baby killed."

"Wow. Really? Sorry, Erza," Jellal spat. "Sorry I got stuck in this mess trying to help your guild. Sorry I bothered with telling you about it. Sorry I thought that despite everything that's happened, I could still have the _one _freedom to help my guild with their work."

Fist clenched, Erza drew her arm back to punch. "You're such a—"

She froze.

At first Jellal only raised an arm to block what was now a very obvious incoming blow, but when Erza continued to not move, he slowly lowered it. She followed suit, not cautiously lowering her arm as Jellal had, but letting it drop limp to her side.

He was still mad. He wanted to be mad. He'd been enslaved. He'd been brainwashed. He'd been locked away. Now he had a bounty on him that said it didn't matter if he was brought in dead or alive. His work with Ultear and Meredy was one of the few things he could do. One of the few things he'd ever chosen to do. Pregnancy or no, Erza or not, he hated having someone tell him he wasn't allowed even that. So he wanted to stay mad.

But he also wanted to be the one who was wronged, and if he kept yelling after she gave up, that would make him feel like the antagonist. More than he wanted to be mad, he wanted to never antagonize Erza again.

So he swallowed back his anger and tried to use a gentle voice when he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Bisca… her and Alzack's first big fight… it was over what color of curtains they would put in the nursery," Erza said, eyes downcast. "That… that's such a couple's thing."

"Erza?"

"Such a _normal_ couple's thing," Erza amended. "Fighting over little details from everyday life. And here we are. It takes foreplanning to meet in a place with other people and your comrades have to scout around your camp to make sure someone won't come in and arrest you again. We're fighting over risking lives and having no freedoms like… like _us_. Like a couple that couldn't ever be normal. We're never going to be a normal couple, Jellal. You can't come to parent teacher conferences and I can't wish you luck when you head out for work in the morning." She laughed, a shrill note that Jellal wished she hadn't made. "You should have kept your job on the Council, you know?"

Jellal started to remind her that it hadn't entirely been his call, and Erza held up a hand to signal for him to stay quiet.

"I know. I know. Freedoms and… I know. It's just… I've never wanted to be happy with anyone else… but the two of us… it wouldn't work… would it?"

It wouldn't. And he'd known that from the start, and avoided letting himself love her for exactly that reason. But hearing Erza admit to it made the reality of their situation feel so much harsher. He wished she would pretend there was something that could remedy the whole thing. Some way to make it all better. Make it so they actually could work.

It wouldn't work. But Jellal still felt himself place a hand on Erza's cheek, sliding a finger under her chin to tilt it up. Still saw himself lean forward, Erza's eyes closing as he got close. Still tasted her lips, chocolaty from the cake, with a hint of mint that he hadn't remembered seeing her eat.

It would never work. But he still heard himself say, "Let's try anyway."


	5. Chapter 5

For a whole month after, Erza's visits were a daily thing. What the visits were like varied. She might check in first thing in the morning, or late in the evening, wanting to say hi before going out or coming back from a job. Sometimes she stayed all morning, sometimes the whole day. She might or might not bring food. Maybe she would want to take Jellal's hand and go for a walk in the surrounding woods, just the two of them, or maybe she would be content to sit at camp with everyone.

There was no rhythm or rhyme to her visits. No consistency beyond that they were a daily thing. Jellal liked that. With so little they could do together, it kept everything feeling fresh. And that he could count on her to be there _some_time was a comfort he'd never expected himself to have.

But that only lasted a month, and through no fault of Erza's.

Jellal had been left at camp alone for the past several days, Ultear and Meredy having finally agreed with Erza that he ought not to go off fighting dark guilds. Someone or another, Lyon, he thought, had discovered later than Jellal that he too was pregnant thanks to that spell, and had been much more public about his condition than Rogue and especially Jellal had been. With Jellal's stomach now sticking out more prominently than he liked to acknowledge, this meant that the last few battles he'd gotten into, someone had successfully deduced his condition, and that he was thus the best one to target.

At least his guild mates had agreed not to tell Erza _why_ they'd suddenly all given in to her insistent pleas that Jellal stop fighting. They all appreciated that she'd switched from yelling to pleading after the first day, and no one was interested in giving her a reason to be upset again.

He was poking at the campfire, debating whether or not to feed it another log. Erza had dropped by earlier with marshmallows, but had been forced to leave to deal with some minor guild emergency. A bar brawl or something. While normal Jellal would like to think himself too much of an adult to indulge in sweets when left alone with a giant bag of them—a bag that he was supposed to share with his girlfriend, pregnant Jellal had learned that it was generally easier to give in to whatever food temptations he experienced. Particularly in light of the fact that half the time, whatever he found himself craving wasn't available for him to indulge in.

After a moment's consideration, he decided that even if it was late and he'd already had so much sugar that his blood had likely turned to syrup, it was not too late for roasting a few more marshmallows. He set another log in the fire and impaled another pillow of sugary white goodness on his roasting stick, and hummed a nursery rhyme to himself as he held the marshmallow close to the embers, watching it turn a golden brown. He wasn't sure where he'd learned the tune. Certainly not from any of the girls he was currently spending his time with. Perhaps it was something from his own childhood? Although his memories had returned some time ago, much of his early childhood was still hazy.

The marshmallow, forgotten in his musing over the nursery rhyme, caught fire, and he shook it from the stick.

Jellal was reaching for another when he heard a branch snap, to which his immediate reaction was not to worry. Over the years he, Ultear, and Meredy had grown used to one another making a bit of noise while acting on lookout.

Then he remembered that he was the only one there. Hurrying to his feet and grabbing the still half full bag of marshmallows, Jellal formed a sphere of light in his hand and looked around. No sense in sticking to a dimmer, warmer source like the campfire, if someone had already seen him.

"Who's there?" He demanded.

An arrow flew out from the trees in response.

Blasting the projectile with a spell, Jellal turned and bolted, running only a few steps before taking off in flight. If he'd been identified, then it was best to assume that whoever approached the camp made sure to have him surrounded.

Normally, in this situation, he would linger in the area long enough to leave some warning for Meredy and Ultear when they returned. But that last run-in with a dark guild had successfully taught him to fear for his child the way Erza wanted him to, and he settled for the knowledge that Ultear and Meredy, having grown up in a dark guild, had plenty of experience with avoiding capture even beyond what the three had managed since forming Crime Sorciere. They could notice something was amiss without his help.

As he glowed while flying, making him easy to track, Jellal didn't go far. He landed in another part of the forest and took a moment to check for any enemies who might have been posted further away from camp. No one. It would be safe now to run off in another direction, and once he'd put a bit more distance between himself and whoever had found the camp, he could fly again.

What a pity. He'd known it wouldn't work between him and Erza, but he'd at least hoped to have the duration of the pregnancy to be with her. Or, if nothing else, to give her a proper goodbye before the guild had to move out.

The ache in his chest, thinking of how he had to leave so soon after giving in to his desire for her, drew Jellal's gaze up to the sky. New moon. He couldn't remember how well lit Magnolia's streets were… but as long as he kept off the main streets, it would probably be dark enough for him to slip through town unnoticed. Just to Erza's townhouse. He wanted to give her a proper farewell.

-o-

At her doorsteps, the desire to say goodbye melted away, overpowered by a burning desire not to leave at all. Absurd, he knew. If it wasn't Rune Knights that had attacked the camp, it was someone who would alert the Rune Knights. Continuing to camp out around Magnolia was no longer an option.

Despite that, the urge not to say goodbye grew in the long, painful seconds between when he rang her doorbell and when she finally opened the front door. Seeing her in pajama, eyes droopy with fatigue, didn't help. He hadn't seen her with her guard so low since… since they were children.

She yawned before thinking to ask, "Did something happen?"

"I…" Those sleepy eyes looking up at him proved too much. "I thought we could roast these together," he said lamely, holding up the half eaten bag of marshmallows.

Erza took a look at the bag, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing so loud she would wake the neighbors. "No wonder you don't look tired," she said once she'd swallowed back her laughter. "Roast them where? I don't have a fireplace?"

Jellal shrugged. "The stove?"

She glanced down at the bag, then turned, her pajamas fading away and being replaced by an apron. "The stove it is."

Jellal swallowed and stepped inside, shutting and locking the door behind him and trying not to stare too obviously at Erza. The apron itself was flattering on her, but as she wore nothing else under it, he hardly noticed.

"I don't have any crackers, but there's chocolate in the cupboard over the fridge," Erza told him. "We can stick those in the marshmallows once they're done roasting and eat them that way."

"Alright."

While Erza got her stove top set so the flame was at a reasonable height, Jellal tried to retrieve her chocolate. To his annoyance, he had to stand on his toes to grab it. In the past couple weeks the child had decided it needed to grow way more than Jellal felt was reasonable, and for as far out as his stomach was now sticking, he needed to stand a little further back from the fridge than he normally would, which meant that he had to reach a little further to get into the cupboard above the fridge.

The baby wasn't so strong yet that he could reliably feel it moving, but sometimes Jellal felt activity inside of him, and right now he was pretty sure the child was doing cartwheels. Must have been all the marshmallow in his system. He was giving the baby a sugar rush before the little guy was even born.

After a bit of digging Erza found sticks meant for shish kebobs and the stuck marshmallows on that. Stools were pulled up before the stove, and the two sat there, slowly cooking marshmallows and munching on chocolate while they waited to be able to mix the two.

"They might have cooked faster over a campfire." Erza glanced at the bag, which was quite clearly half empty. "Did they cook faster that way? I could have come out tomorrow, if you wanted to do this with me so badly."

"They roasted faster over a camp fire," Jellal confirmed. "But we'll have to move camp again."

"Oh. But you just set up there a few days ago."

He pulled his marshmallow back and inspected it. It was just starting to show signs of turning brown. "We'll need to go somewhere further. A few towns over, at least. But… in a month or two we should be able to move back here." He hoped.

"Did something happen?"

Setting the marshmallow over the fire again, Jellal shrugged and said, "Nothing dire. But I think that the council has worked out that we're in the area."

"Is that why you're really here?" Erza asked. "You don't think it's safe back at camp, so you needed somewhere to go for the night?"

That he no longer had somewhere to stay for the night hadn't occurred to Jellal, but admitting as much would make him look bad. "You don't mind, do you?"

Erza shook her head. "If you need a place to hide for the night, my door is open. You're already in, in fact. I'll take the couch for the night."

"You don't have to do that."

"I'm not putting my baby on the couch," Erza insisted. "Years from now, we'll have a fight over how I don't let her do everything she wants, and she'll claim I never loved her and she knows it because I made her sleep on the couch once."

That was the stupidest thing Jellal had heard in a long time. But Erza played along with his horrible lies and excuses often enough, and he could always find some way to beat her to the couch without having to call her out for making up such and absurd excuse. So instead of telling her that he insisted she take the bed anyway, Jellal said, "He."

"Hm?"

"He would claim you never loved him. We're having a boy."

"A boy? Meredy can tell the gender now?"

Jellal nodded.

"When… when did you learn? This morning? Oh, I wish I'd stayed long enough to do more than just drop off sweets."

Meredy had told him the baby's gender two weeks ago. But they'd been in the middle of moving camp, and then he'd risked sneaking into town to buy ice cream when he'd wanted to so very badly. And then there had been the incident where the dark guild targeted him for being pregnant. And all in all, mentioning that they knew the baby's gender had slipped his mind. Best not admit to that.

"Sorry. Were you hoping for a girl?"

"Not too much so. A boy will be just as beautiful, I'm sure." Erza leaned over, resting her head against Jellal's shoulder and shutting her eyes. "That we're having a child at all is nothing short of a miracle."

Since she was no longer watching the marshmallows, Jellal nudged Erza's hand slightly to move her treat away from the fire before it could turn black. "You think it was that impossible for us?"

"With you pretending to be engaged just to avoid making me 'settle' for you?" Erza chuckled. "Even before taking into account that _you're _the one who's pregnant, calling the baby a miracle might be an understatement. If we'd had a girl, I might have even named her that. Except that people would call her Mira, then."

Jellal laughed. "Well, what would you name a miracle boy?"

"Kiseki," Erza decided. "We'll call him Kiseki."

-o-

Any discussion over who would take the couch ended up being pointless. The sky was beginning to lighten with early signs of morning while the two were cooking the last of the marshmallows, talking about their son and what kind of person he might grow up to be.

Jellal was studying the back of the bag, attempting to calculate exactly how much sugar he'd had over the course of the night, when there was a knock on the door.

"I'll see who it is. You duck behind the counter," Erza told him, which was easy enough for her to say. She wasn't four months pregnant.

After attempting a simple crouch failed, what, with the baby getting in the way when he tried to bend over. Jellal settled for getting on his knees and leaning back instead, which still required a bit of finagling, but he managed.

The same as with the last time someone had knocked while he was visiting Erza, it turned out to only be Ultear. This time, however, Jellal did no rise upon learning who was there. Getting into his hiding position had been too much effort for him to only stay there half a minute.

He wasn't able to watch the two, but from where he sat, he could hear them well enough.

"Erza! Have you seen Jellal?"

"He's here."

"He is? Oh, thank God."

"Did something happen?"

"Meredy and I just returned to find the camp ransacked. We'd taken our things with us, so we only need to replace a few supplies, but Jellal hadn't left anything behind to indicate that he'd gotten away safely."

"He mentioned thinking you would need to move further away. He must have left before whoever he suspected was out there found the camp."

"Well, so long as he's safe."

There was a long pause, during which Jellal considered getting up after all, before realizing that would mean letting Ultear watch him struggle to his feet from the awkward position he'd gotten into. And when Ultear saw him make a fool of himself, she liked to make sure he wasn't able to forget for months, or even years.

"Where will the three of you go?"

"Meredy and I… will probably head west from here. We've been fairly stationary for so long, a few dark guilds we'd kept down are starting to gain power again. There aren't as many towns in that area, though. A lot of that territory is strictly controlled by those guilds. It's not exactly safe to take Jellal in with us… and with nowhere near by to leave him…"

What was she talking about? He hadn't heard anything about guilds coming back, nor could he think of areas that were completely under the control of dark guilds. In fact, for _any_ guild to be far away from a town was absurd. Not every guild was right in a town, but every official guild Jellal had seen was close enough to a town to be able to get supplies and house their members.

"I see. Perhaps he could stay with me until it's safe for you to come back?"

Oh. _That's_ what Ultear was up to.

"Could you do that?"

"It seems doable. We'll have to be a little careful, but I think we can manage."

"Alright. We'll send a letter when it's safe for him to come back. If it's not so late that he shouldn't be traveling anymore."

It took Jellal a second to realize she meant late term. Having hoped to be able to camp around Magnolia for the duration of his pregnancy, he'd forgotten that travel when near one's due date was something that people discouraged.

"Thank you for coming here, despite the risk."

"No, thank you for sheltering him. We'll be in touch."

"Alright. Goodbye."

The door closed.

"Well," Erza said, walking back towards the kitchen, "it looks like you're going to stay her a… little… longer…"

She'd spotted him leaning back awkwardly, and to Jellal's embarrassment, made no effort to stop herself from laughing. Jellal, struggling to try and stand back up, was not nearly as amused.

"A little help?"

"Sorry. Sorry." Erza held out a hand for Jellal to take, and when he did, yanked him to his feet. "Looks like you're staying with me for a few months."

She smiled when she said that, so he smiled in return. In truth, though, he wasn't sure that was worth smiling for. Staying in the area for a few months was what he wanted. Hiding in Erza's house, he expected to have a severe case of cabin fever by the end of the week.


	6. Chapter 6

**STA:** I think I forgot to mention it on this site. The conflict for the story was resolved already. I'm considering the whole second half of this story fluff.

-x-

As Jellal had suspected, within the week he was sick of being cooped up in Erza's small townhouse. To keep him from going completely stir crazy, Erza had conceded to late night walks, guiding him around the less lit parts of town where he wasn't likely to be seen and even less likely to be identified. Although she had initially thought she could work extra to be ready financially for a child, she wasn't willing to leave Jellal alone more than a few hours. Not unless he insisted for several days in a row that she go out with her team.

She made a deal with Natsu that him and her and Rogue could all babysit for one another so she would be able to work with some regularity once Kiseki was born. Sometimes, if she stopped by the guild for news, or to make sure her social obligations didn't completely fall to the wayside, she might help tend the bar for a few hours in exchange for some small pay, which she spent on treats and games to enjoy with Jellal when she got home.

Sharing a living space, they moved up the ranks in forms of entertainment rapidly. The first couple days it was jigsaw puzzles and board games. Things a young child might do with a play date. Things that you only did with your boyfriend when the two of you weren't completely certain that you were a couple. When those became boring they tried baking sweets, so they could stay up all night with something a little less juvenile than marshmallows. Jellal made Erza cookies, while Erza cooked Jellal her special Strawberry Pie Surprise. Jellal still being nauseated by the scent of strawberries, he was relieved when the surprise turned out to be that the pie was actually made with apples.

Romantic movies were added to their repertoire. A few movies in Jellal worked up the nerve to actually try yawning and casually letting an arm fall over Erza's shoulder. Results were a mixed success. She found the move to ridiculous to take seriously, and the movie had to be paused until she was done laughing. But after that, if either noticed the other's attention in the film waning, a kiss on the cheek might steal their attention entirely. From there, it was only a matter of hours before the years apart caught up, and those kisses became less innocent.

The two were on the couch, a long forgotten romantic comedy playing in the background, Erza having crawled onto Jellal and the two noticing little beyond one another's taste, when something distracted her from finding that one perfect section of his lip to bite.

She pulled back. "What was that?"

"What was what? Is something wrong?" He hoped not. If it was anything that required more than a few seconds of her time, she might not go back to making out once whatever it was had been resolved.

"Something shifted under me."

"Well," Jellal gestured to the two of them, "I am under you, and I'm not completely stationary." Even if the baby was now growing large enough and made getting up and moving about awkward enough that he sometimes felt like he ought to be.

"No. I would have felt you move somewhere else too. It was just right… oh." She put a hand on Jellal's stomach. "Is Kiseki moving?"

"I don't think he's _stopped_ moving any time in the past month." It felt that way, at least.

"And you didn't _tell _me?"

Jellal shrugged. "I thought I did."

Now that he thought about it, the motions had been so faint at first that it took him a little while to identify what they were, and then they'd been weak enough that he knew Erza wouldn't be able to feel it, so he'd held off on mentioning it.

"Well, you didn't."

"Perhaps you forgot I mentioned it?"

"Not a chance."

"Ah. Well… yes." Jellal attempted to wiggle out from under Erza, but found that, with Kiseki getting bigger and bigger, he wasn't quite flexible enough. "In any case… um… Oh! What's going on?" He looked to the TV. "Can we rewind? I have no idea where we are in the story right now."

"Only if you can name the movie that's playing."

He could not.

"Well, do you want to feel him move?"

"Yes." Erza placed both hands on Jellal's stomach, waiting for Kiseki to shift again.

"Can we still talk?"

"No. I'm mad at you. How could you keep this secret? How could you keep this secret when I am your only current human interaction?" She was smiling, though. And conversing. So Jellal kept talking.

"He's getting big. I'm starting to worry he might burst out early."

"I take it you've fully wrapped your mind around the idea that you're carrying another human being, then?"

"It's kind of hard to deny, when he kicks me in the bladder."

Erza laughed. "Well, I'm glad to hear that. For a while I was worried that—Oh! I felt him! I felt him, Jellal!"

Her eyes lit up, a grin spreading across her face, and she gave the spot where one of Kiseki's little feet at pushed out hard enough for her to notice a pat.

"If you keep that up, I'll think you only keep me around for the baby," Jellal joked.

Neither of them laughed, as it occurred to the two that he was kept there for exactly that reason, and would be leaving once the baby was born. No longer looking quite so excited, Erza climbed off of him and looked away, giving Jellal a chance to sit upright.

"It would be nice if I could stay longer," Jellal said. "Even if there's still something I have to do."

"I know. I wish you…" Thinking better of finishing that sentence, Erza took a deep breath and tried something else. "Sometimes I think we have the most convoluted relationship in the country."

"I would have said the continent."

She tried to smile at his attempt at humor. "You think our situation is _that _bad?"

"N-no." Yeah. "Right now, we probably have the most convoluted relationship in Magnolia, though."

"Right now, I think Rogue is giving us a run for our money."

"The other pregnant man? What happened with him?"

"Nothing, really. Sting's the father, you know. But Rogue's following Natsu around instead and the drama between the three is enough to fill a book with. None of them keep a single detail secret, too."

"That bad?"

"Recently, Natsu came in all worked up over the fact that Rogue slept with him."

"Oh." Jellal had assumed she was kidding about them being open with their drama. "But that's good, right? Or does he not like Rogue?"

"He likes Rogue. He's asking for everyone's opinion on whether Rogue really likes him, or if it's just pregnancy hormones." She paused, eyes drifting to Jellal's stomach. "Come to think of it… you might be the expert on that one?"

"Me? I have seven years of pent up frustration traveling with two attractive, off limits women." Not that Meredy had ever been that tempting a consideration. Ultear, however. Some things might have happened back when the two of them were serving on the council. And that might have made traveling together awkward at times.

"Oh?" Erza smirked, a hand that had been on Jellal's stomach moving to the top of his thigh. "You waited for me?"

"A-anyway, since my situation isn't that same as Rogue's, that my own wants have little to do with my current condition bears little relevancy on the cause of his behavior."

"Well then," Erza leaned over, pressing her lips against Jellal's ear, and dropping her voice to a whisper, "If we want to investigate Natsu's concerns, perhaps we should relieve some of your tension?"

-o-

They made it all the way upstairs, but not to the bed. Getting into bed only came once they were done, because the two agreed that it was a more appropriate place for them to lie down and enjoy the afterglow.

Jellal had claimed Erza's couch when he unofficially moved in with her, and since he would be gone after Kiseki was born, Erza hadn't bothered to purchase a larger bed that the two of them could share. The one she slept in, however, proved manageable. Jellal crawled into it and rolled on his side with his back pressed against the wall, and Erza wrapped her arms around his back and held herself against him, resting her forehead on his chest.

Pressed up against Jellal's stomach as she was, she felt Kiseki shift again, and smiled to herself.

He would be gone once the baby was born. But right then he was there. He was hers. And she couldn't have been more content.


	7. Chapter 7

Having gotten over any reservations about being in Erza's bed, Jellal had taken to crawling into her sheets and resting in her room while Erza was away with work. He was napping, in the middle of a dream where he and Erza roasted marshmallows over the mouth of an open volcano, when a cry for help downstairs woke him up.

It took him a moment to figure out why he wasn't dangling over a volcano, and once he realized he was awake, he scrambled out of bed and hurried downstairs to see what the trouble was. Or tried too, anyway. Still tired, he nearly fell out of bed and needed a moment to orient himself. But once he was clear on which direction down was, he headed downstairs as fast as he could.

He found himself regretting his haste almost immediately. Erza was, he discovered, in no danger, and he hadn't needed to leave the comfort of her bed in such a hurry. Then again, if she was panicking, _she_ wouldn't come to her bed, and he was already awake, so he wasn't missing too much.

Erza's attention was on a letter clutched in her hands, and she didn't seem to notice him. Jellal walked with heavy footsteps to try and avoid sneaking up on her. When she didn't notice him approach, he cleared his throat, which proved equally futile. He then started to cough, which hadn't been intentional, but could have also functioned as a way of getting her attention. That didn't work either. There was no shortage of other efforts he could make to get her attention, but for those he risked getting his wrist broken, if he startled her. Having been woken from a nice dream only to be ignored, he didn't think it even remotely worth the risk.

It was a little past noon, so while Erza occupied herself with staring at the letter and saying, "No, no, no," over and over, Jellal cooked rice and chopped vegetables to fry for the two of them.

The sound of soysauce hissing as he shook it onto a frying pan was what finally jolted Erza out of her state of panic, and she murmured something that sounded vaguely like a thanks.

"You didn't eat at the guild hall, did you?"

"No. I meant to, but I ran back when Mira gave me this."

She passed him the note, but by then Jellal had the rice and vegetables almost fully cooked, and rather than burn them, he waited until they were ready to pour onto a plate for him and Erza to share before inspecting the letter.

It was an invite to a baby shower. For one brief moment, Jellal felt jealous. He couldn't have one. But then having one would mean plenty of people would be able to see his stomach. No matter how many times he told himself that it was perfectly natural for someone to look how he did when pregnant, no matter how much he'd come to anticipate the child he was carrying, Jellal couldn't rid himself of the notion that he looked like someone with a beer gut.

"What's wrong?"

"I… I have nothing to bring. Mira wants to surprise Rogue, he hasn't provided a list of things he still needs. Anything I could get him, Natsu might have already bought. Or Sting. They might have bought Rogue two of everything competing over him."

"You think _Natsu_ was on top of preparing for a baby?" Jellal laughed, which made him cough again. When he'd gotten his breathing under control, he asked, "You think Natsu knows how to properly prepare for a baby? Natsu? Really?"

"W-well, Rogue might have told him what to get," Erza argued.

"And I'm sure he followed instructions properly." Jellal grinned. "Actually, do _we_ have anything ready for when Kiseki is born?"

"Ah… no. No, we don't."

"We should draw up a list of things we need, then. We can buy two of something and give Rogue the spare."

Erza looked up from the letter and smiled. "We?"

Jellal froze.

Erza tilted her head, confused with the look of despair on her boyfriend's face. Was that the work of mood swings? She'd only meant to tease him about the fact that she was the one who would do the shopping.

What didn't occur to her, and what she'd accidentally reminded Jellal of, was that he would have no part in taking care of Kiseki. There was no "we" being ready for Kiseki's birth. As soon as he had recovered from the delivery, he needed to leave town. It would be all Erza handling Kiseki's upbringing.

"Jellal? Are you okay?"

"Y-yes. Baby supplies. We should make a list." He laughed, maybe a little too loudly, and hoped she wouldn't notice that his smile was fake.

"Very well." Erza grabbed Jellal by the collar of his shirt. "To the nursery!"

"Why the nursery?" That room was still empty.

"We need to decide where to place everything we decide we need."

Fair enough.

Since there would be no _we_ in raising the baby, Jellal figured it would be best if he back and contributed next to nothing to the supply plans. If Erza had any major oversights, he would point out that she was missing something, but she was the one who had to live with the nursery, so it only seemed fair that she set it up as she pleased. Maybe, depending on how big and in the way Kiseki was by the time they had those supplies, he might be able to help get it all put together.

The second the two of them set foot in the room Erza put her hands on her hips, scowled at the walls, and declared, "Blue."

"What?"

"We need blue paint. We're having a boy, right."

"What if his favorite color is green?"

"Then we can paint it green when he learns to speak."

There was that 'we' again. But now, despite his resolution not to interfere with what Erza wanted for the room, Jellal was more bothered by the idea that his son might spends years in a room that was the wrong color.

"I'm not sure about this," Jellal said. "What if he doesn't like blue?"

Erza gave him an odd look, trying to assess whether or not he was joking. Jellal hadn't displayed much in the way of mood swings, but she'd heard Natsu report on odd behavior from Rogue from time to time. Seeing Jellal act moody might be cute… but then if mood swings were why he cared so much about blue paint, she didn't want to distress him.

Jellal was a pretty logical person. He ought to respond to logic well. "What if we paint the room green, and it turns out Kiseki likes blue best? It's my favorite color, after all."

She could see that, despite the suggestive note she'd added to that last sentence, the implication that she liked his hair had gone over Jellal's head. He continued to look distressed by the idea that they might place their son in a room that he didn't like the color of.

"Oh, Jellal, for heaven's sake. He's a baby. He won't care. And we can't help it if he grows up to not like something. He might not like the name Kiseki. He might not like having a mother with long hair. He might not like the shape of whatever blanket we give him."

Rather than agree that he was silly for worrying so much over blue and green paint, Jellal said, "Should we wait until he can speak before asking him what name he wants?"

"No. His name is Kiseki."

"But—"

"Did your parents wait until you could speak before asking what you wanted for a name?"

"No."

"And you turned out just fine, so Kiseki can be Kiseki and we're painting his room blue."

There was a horribly massive flaw in that argument, and they stared at one another, waiting to see if the other would point it out. Jellal worked up the nerve to say it, but a particularly harsh cough kept him from getting the words out, and Erza took the act as an indication that he had nothing to say.

"Alright. We'll need… well, we'll need diapers for sure. Maybe formula, but that would go in the kitchen. A baby blanket... Oh! Most people have a little changing station, don't they? Where should we put that?"

"Near the crib?"

Erza smacked herself in the forehead. "Crib! How could I forget a crib!"

Jellal, who had thought she didn't list it because it was a given, wanted to know the answer to that one too.

"We could put a crib right here," she decided. Pointing to a section of the wall. "Then the changing station could go in the corner. That way when he cries, we can get him taken care of right away. Assuming he's crying because his diaper needs to be changed. That will make it easy for us to reach him without putting him right by the door." Erza grinned and looked back at him. "Hey, we should probably by some diapers now. Just for practice putting them on."

Jellal tried to smile for her. "Yeah."

She froze, remembering for the first time in a long time that Jellal wasn't there to stay, and she'd effectively offered to be a single mother.

"W-well, we both need to be a part of this practice, somehow." Erza put her hands on her hips. "When I buy diapers for Kiseki, I can buy the adult ones too. You have to let me practice on you."

"That's… _really_ not necessary."

"It might help. Once Kiseki's big enough, don't you think you might have trouble holding it?"

She wasn't wrong about that. Jellal still had quite a few weeks left, and he was already keenly aware of the fact that the baby was situated just above his bladder. Still…

"I would prefer that you not put me in adult diapers."

"So you _don't_ want me to be prepared for when Kiseki is born?"

"I'm sure you can figure it out then, Erza. It's not rocket science."

Erza put on her best pout. "But what if he squirms too much?"

"Then I don't see how practicing on an adult who knows to hold still will help." Or did she _want_ him to squirm? Now there was an unsettling thought. "It's not like you would—" A coughing fit interrupted him mid-sentence.

"Are you okay?" Erza asked. "You've been doing that a lot."

He was still coughing, so he attempted to answer her with a nod.

For some reason, this wasn't convincing. When the coughing stopped, Erza put a hand to Jellal's forehead and announced, "Warm. You might be coming down with something."

"Not likely. I haven't been outside much."

"It's flu season, though. Are you dizzy at all? Cold? Nauseous?"

His morning sickness had died down almost completely, but still flared up every now and then, just to spite him. If he were sick, Jellal still thought it made sense to wait a half a day or so to make sure any nausea was from a cold rather than Kiseki. "I'm fine. I've been taking it easy, anyway. I slept all morning."

"You shouldn't do that," she told him.

He took her hand and removed it from his forehead before saying, "There isn't much else to do to pass the time when you aren't here."

She bit her lip and looked away. To have Jellal so close to her for so long was something she'd long ago given up hope for. She'd agreed to Ultear's request so eagerly, thinking of how she would actually get to live out that fantasy of being with him, even if only for a little while. She'd known he was bored, confined to her house, but whenever he went too long without pointing it out, that unpleasant detail of their cohabitation slipped from the front of her mind. And generally he tried to be polite and not point it out.

"We need to come up with something," she said. "Some way you can be out and about. At least for a few days. A change of scenery would be nice."

"It would, but—"

"_Anyway_¸ until we come up with what to do for that, I should stick around more, shouldn't I? I don't have to go to Rogue's baby shower. We don't interact much anyway. I'll stay and take care of you."

"It might be worth your while to get on better terms with your guild member who's going to be a new parent around the same time as you," Jellal pointed out. "It's just a cough. I can manage the evening on my own."

Erza scowled, studying Jellal for any other indications that he was unwell, then requiped into a nurse's outfit. "Fine. The evening alone. But for the afternoon, you have to let me take care of you."

Jellal looked the outfit up and down. It was hardly a standard hospital uniform. Much too much leg showing, which wasn't bad, but it did raise an important question. "What type of 'taking care' are we talking about."

Erza grinned. "How about both?"

"You'll catch whatever I'm coming down with."

"Exposure to diseases is a risk one takes in the healthcare industry. Now, how can I make you comfortable?"


	8. Chapter 8

Erza came home moping one day, when Jellal was in the middle of counting off the days he had left until he was done being pregnant. He had passed the thirty week mark, and while he knew Meredy had told him months ago that it was only a single boy, his stomach felt so ridiculously huge that he suspected she had somehow missed that Kiseki had a twin.

Granted, he only ever felt one baby moving. One baby who'd hardly stopped moving for weeks, hence his being so eager to have the kid out, even if it meant he and Erza wouldn't see as much of one another.

"What's that tally for?"

"How many days until we get to see Kiseki's face."

She smiled, briefly, but then her face fell again. "I didn't realize we were getting so close. Is your guild coming back for the delivery?"

Jellal hoped they stayed away, after ditching him for the duration of the pregnancy. And personally, he thought they could stand to be a little closer to done. But neither of those sentiments would have been taken well with her current mood.

"I'll miss being able to see so much of you."

"Me too." She mumbled, toying with a loose string on her skirt. "Maybe we could go… um… we should make dinner."

Rather than go over to the kitchen and get on that, she continued to stand over him, picking at that string.

With a huff, Jellal pushed himself up. His balance had been off ever since Kiseki decided to grow too much, and he liked to avoid standing, but if Erza wanted dinner and wasn't cooking, then that left him to handle it.

Looking through the fridge he saw no particular cohesion between the ingredients available, and decided that a soup would suffice. You could through just about any vegetable into a chicken soup and call it a meal.

He was chopping celery when he felt Erza wrap her arms around him, her forehead resting between his shoulder blades. He paused a moment, then resumed chopping as he asked, "Is something on your mind?"

"You leave in two months."

"That's what you were thinking about when you came in?"

She shook her head, forehead rubbing against his back. "Natsu and Rogue went off to some resort. But we're stuck here."

Jellal felt a twinge of guilt, and set the knife aside, leaving the celery half cut. Now devoting his full attention to Erza, he reached back and placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's not like we won't see one another again once Kiseki's born. I won't be around constantly, but I'll visit often. I want him to know his mom's face."

"Dad's," Erza corrected.

"Sure. Sure. But if you're tired of keeping close to town, I don't want to force you to stay. I can survive for a few days on my own."

"Just a few?"

"I might feel a little offended if you left me behind for longer than that," he admitted. "I'd feel worse if I were holding you back, though."

"Don't worry about it. There isn't anywhere I want to go. Not on my own, at least." The hands wrapped around Jellal's torso slipped away. "But I'm jealous of those two. I wish we could go on some sort of vacation. I could never sneak you into a hotel, and it's too cold to camp."

Save for the last few months, Jellal had been camping for seven years. Often when it was cold enough that no person who had the option to do otherwise would pitch a tent and huddle around a small fire. If Erza really wanted to camp mid-winter, he could give her quite a few pointers as to how to pull it off without getting frostbite. But if what she wanted was a romantic getaway, then camping would not be it.

"Let's move the couch," Jellal decided. "And the coffee table. We can clear out a space in the living room and set up a tent."

Erza laughed.

"Why not? We already know we can roast marshmallows over the stove."

She stopped laughing, considering it, then leaned forward so he could see her face. "Alright. We'll give it a shot. Give me a few days to get set up."

"To put a tent together in your living room? That takes five minutes."

"Maybe for you. And besides, it's not just the tent."

"What more do you need?"

"The full camping experience. Just wait. You'll see."

-o-

A true full camping experience would include dirt. Lots of it. Everywhere. And no matter how hard you tried, you would track it into your tent. It would get into your boots, then your socks, and at some point you would give up on trying to keep the space between your toes clear of it.

For as much effort as Erza had put into making her living room look like the outdoors without actually trashing it, Jellal refrained from pointing this out to her.

Aside from the dirt, she'd done a fair job. The regular white curtains had been replaced with heavy black ones that further blotted out the sun. Potted plants had been placed everywhere to make it look somewhat forest like, and the ceiling had been covered in sheets of blue and white paper that were speckled with dots of glow in the dark glue, making it look something like a clear sky with the lights on, and a starry sky with them off. She'd even found a variety of pillows and sheets to throw under the tent to comfortably simulate the feel of an uneven sleeping surface.

"I wanted to get Lucy to help me set up the stars—she knows all their positions. But she was away on a job. So they're not accurate."

"I would never have noticed," Jellal lied, then added more truthfully, "I'm sure they'll look just as beautiful this way." If I can manage to look away from you. The cheesy line almost made it out, but he blushed and looked away without saying it.

Erza cocked her head, curious as to why her beloved would have turned red without warning. When no explanation came, she discounted it as mood swings. Did those get worse the later into pregnancy you were? Jellal looked just about ready to burst, so she sometimes felt like he had himself too well under control.

Not that she dared joke about that, considering how many years he'd gone having his feelings dictated by someone else.

She had decided the stove wouldn't cut it as a campfire, and dragged a charcoal grill into the kitchen. It wasn't the right time of year to leave windows open, but being exposed to outdoor air was part of camping, so she'd opened them all. And with the chilly breeze coming in through the living room and out the kitchen window, she'd figured the grill was relatively safe to use indoors.

In lieu of stumps, she had found two old, rustic stools to pull up around the grill, and she and Jellal roasted sausages for lunch.

"How did I do?" Erza asked as they ate. "How authentic is it?"

They were indoors, so not very. It would have been closer to the real thing if she put all those fake trees in her backyard to try and keep neighbors from looking. But you couldn't get fake trees tall enough to obscure them completely, and as Jellal had learned over the years, he had very, very distinctive appearance.

Besides, right then there was a nice balance of cold breeze and heat from the grill that the walls didn't want to let slip away so easily.

"It's perfect. Better than the real thing."

Erza laughed. "You would know."

She tried to lean to her side, then stopped, scooted her stool closer to his, and leaned over again, resting her head on his shoulder. Jellal went still, afraid that if he moved too much, he might cause her to lose her balance.

"I'm happy here, you know. The two of us like this. I wish time would stop. Don't you?"

"Three," Jellal corrected. "Any yes, I—Crap!"

Holding still as he was, the sausage he'd positioned over the grill had caught fire.

Erza scooted away as he yanked the sausage back and blew the fire out, then inspected the damage. Not too burned. Without giving it much thought, he bit the black part of and spat it into the fire.

Then he remembered that Erza was watching.

"Ah… Sorry. That was…"

"It's okay. Burning food is part of the camp experience. Although the smell of burnt food in my kitchen…"

"Sorry…"

At least she didn't think he'd been too uncivilized, spitting out food like that. There were habits that you got into when you spent the better part of seven years camping. It was agreed upon by him, Ultear, and Meredy that the fire was the easiest way of disposing of ruined food, and if you didn't have a knife, you had to improvise with separating parts of your meat. But Erza, who was able to stay in town and could always make sure she had absolutely every luxury item one could want when going on a camping trip…

Erza didn't care about him taking a bit out of the sausage and spitting it out. And once she confirmed that the smell of burnt meat was being carried out on the cool breeze, she didn't mind the meat sitting in the bottom of the grill either. So no harm done.

Except she was no longer resting up against him. He kicked himself mentally for not paying more attention. It would have been nice if she'd kept her head on his shoulder a little longer.

"Don't worry about it," Erza insisted. "You had to buy them in packs of eight, so there's plenty more."

The loss of food wasn't what had worried Jellal, and when Erza's assurance did nothing to make him loosen up, she tried to push that angle harder.

"Here. Mine's done cooking. Have a bite."

She held it up in front of him, waving it between the corners of his lips.

"What of mine isn't burnt is still—"

She silenced him with the sausage, popping it into his mouth while it was open, and sliding the roasting fork out of the meat once he obliged her and bit in. She then took him by surprise a second time, moving forward and biting into the sausage, her lips brushing up against his. On reflex pulled back, blushing wildly and taking his half of the sausage with him. A second later he caught on to what she had done, and regretted the reaction.

Erza laughed, seeing him so flustered. "What's wrong? It's not like we haven't kissed before."

Jellal covered his mouth with his hand and looked away, still blushing. At least she truly didn't seem bothered by his poor manners.

"Jellal? Hey? Are you alright?"

"O-oh! Yes. I just… I wasn't expecting that. Sorry."

"Did you not like it?"

"No… No it was… It was nice. I don't think we've ever done that by surprise."

Erza smiled. "We only have a few more months like this. I'll be sure to find more opportunities to surprise you while I have the chance."

-o-

She found her second opportunity that night as they settled down in the tent.

After a great deal of time and effort was spent on Jellal's part finding a way to make himself comfortable with the baby on top of all of the uneven pillows, Erza easily slid into a sleeping bag beside him, smiling like she wasn't trying to make him insanely jealous of how little effort it took her to be moderately comfortable. She probably wasn't, honestly.

"Do you like the stars?" she asked, and he looked up to see that the top of the tent was mesh rather than solid fabric, and you could see her glow in the dark dots from where they lay.

"Their lovely," he said.

He looked back to her to say it again, but the words were smothered by her own mouth. This time, to see her so much closer suddenly didn't startle him, and he couldn't have backed away wrapped in a sleeping bag in the one spot where he could make himself comfortable anyway.

He closed his eyes, blocking out all sensation but that of her lips.

They didn't have much time left together. Even if he was fed up with being pregnant, he dreaded it being over.


End file.
